In a move that would certainly shake up the computer industry quite a bit, IBM is reportedly in talks with Sun Microsystems about the possibility of IBM acquiring Sun. Sun is going through hard times at the moment, and has been actively looking for someone to be acquired by.

No. I'm not blaming it on Oracle. No matter who the vendor was it would have been a debacle. The problem is the very concept of turn-key.

The reason the system doesn't work is because it's a "turn-key" product that's supposed be everything to everybody. The end result is that it's so big and so complicated that it has bugs out the wazoo, and no lone person can comprehend any more than a minute portion of it at any one time.

You're right, it was bad project management. Here are the reasons for it:

1. desire for a turn-key solution
2. attemp to unify 23 campus using said turn-key solution.

If one company has enough knowledge about their customer base then it should be easy to cover 80% through the provision of templates with the last 20% being provided with the necessary tools to customise the scenario templates to suit their unique circumstances.

Lets not try to delude ourselves thinking that there are massive differences when it comes to what people want to do; there is a basic goal which one wishes to achieve - if your turn key solution is so inflexible that it doesn't allow the customisation to be build on top of the basic template then the issue is crap system design and analysis of customers needs rather than the concept of turn key solutions being a failure.

It is also a failure when people assume that turn key solutions mean 'no work at all'. If you walk around thinking that it will result in no work then you're sorely mistaken. Turn key means 'minimal work' not 'no work' as so long as the vendor provides the necessary tools (as mentioned previously).